Beach Scene With Woman

Her footprints in the sand show where she ran.
If she had won the race, her prize was freedom.
She lost, and now she is herself the prize.
She turns now, facing HIM. She's standing still
But her whole body seems in sensuous motion:
Light playing, teasing vulnerable skin
Gleaming with suntan oil and perspiration.
A drop of sweat shines jewel-like in her navel,
Her breasts rise, strain, as if in an attempt
To escape the confines of the brassiere.
She seems more bare than if she were stark naked:
The bikini hiding her figure no more
Than jewellery, mere skin-tight adornment,
An emphasis of sensitive curved flesh.
The heavy definition of his muscles
Is much more eloquent than any words,
The statement that for all her mind and spirit
A man like HIM can claim her for his own.
For all her outrage, he is judge and jury
And there is no appeal from his decision:
"I sentence you to nudity and love.
Her eyes proclaim that she can live her life,
Make her own choices without any man;
But those things now are only fragile dreams
From which she will awaken in his bed.